I’ve been reading a book on the train to work since the middle of last week, and it was fitting that I finished it in New York: Meet Me In The Bathroom is an oral history of the NYC rock scene at the turn of the century when the Strokes, Interpol, TV On the Radio and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs all blew up. I was reading the first music blogs at this point and sort of liked the Strokes but Interpol resonated more with me at that time; it was unlike anything I’d heard before. The book paints a picture of New York that sounds dirty and glamorous and goes a long way to explain where these artists had come from and who they were. Much like fine art, I appreciate music more with context and personal experience, so I started digging back into these and other affiliated bands on Spotify today and found a new appreciation for some bands and some songs that I didn’t have before.
Another book the family just finished this evening: The Mysterious Benedict Society, a young adult book that was recommended for kids who enjoyed the Harry Potter series. It’s a big one that begins slowly, and is written in a way that is challenging to read out loud. But the ending paid off and Finn wants to move on to the next book in the series, so I’ll be placing an order on Amazon tonight.
At the event yesterday, I was using a new Canon 5D MkIV, which is the fancy new update of the MkII I inherited when I came to WRI. It’s a fantastic camera in all respects–focus, speed, ISO depth, a touchscreen interface, 4K video, and wireless connectivity. But the wireless fell flat on its face yesterday as several people asked me to send them photos directly from the event; I’d followed Canon’s instructions and paired the camera with my app at the hotel the night before the gig (it’s where I got this shot of NYC from) like a good little monkey. But try as I might between photo ops yesterday, the fucking camera forgot how to work and wouldn’t broadcast WiFi for shit, and I didn’t have the proper cable to pull them onto my laptop at the venue–nor did I really want to. My Fuji does this in three steps, and it’s worked flawlessly. I wonder why Canon couldn’t get this right? I’ll have to do some more digging to figure that out. I got some good shots, though, and even set up a timelapse with my GoPro perched on an exit sign for giggles.
I’m on a train heading to New York City for a whirlwind 16-hour business trip. I’ve got one backpack stuffed with expensive camera gear and another, smaller backpack with clean professional clothes to change into. After boarding the train, I found out the reservation for the single room I was booked into was screwed up, and now I will be in a bunk bed, sharing the room with a fellow employee.
I’ll get in at midnight, be at the hotel at 12:30 and up at 6:45 to get uptown by 8:30 to scout out the venue. The event goes from 9:30-1 and I’ll be on my feet the whole time shooting. From there I can stop and get some lunch, and then get back to Penn Station for my train home at 4:35. Hopefully I can sleep on the train.
Pitchfork just posted their list of the 200 Best Albums of the 1980’s. There are so many excellent albums to choose from in that decade; I guess their top 10 is a pretty good (if not uninspired) group.
On heavy repeat this week: Just Give In/Never Going Home, by Hazel English. Of all places I heard the song Never Going Home at a restaurant and had Siri’s Shazam feature tell me what it was. It’s super chill, laid back music about longing and homesickness, heavy on picked electric guitar.
I’d been planning to organize a baseball Sunday with Finn and Zachary for a couple of months, since before our camping weekend. Knowing that the season is winding down, I found a couple of Sunday games at Oriole Park toward the end of September and started making plans with K to schedule. As it turned out, she was offered three tickets through work for last Sunday and grabbed them for us. We made some quick plans and arranged to meet at the McDonald’s over the Bay Bridge on Sunday morning. I was worried because the weather had been so-so on Saturday, patches of sunshine alternating with patches of bruised gray clouds, and I thought we’d get rained on at least once during the game.
Bright and early, I headed over the bridge to the east side and waited, and it turned out she’d headed over the bridge to the west side and waited–so she came back over and made the hand-off. D’oh!
Driving to the park, I followed the signs for the A/B/C lots and was directed toward C, right next to the train tracks. One of the attendants asked me if I had a pass; I had a $10 in my hand ready to go. He looked in the back of the car, reached in his back pocket, and gave me a free parking pass. Thanking him profusely, we found a spot, readied our gear, and walked into the park under a slightly cloudy blue sky. Because the O’s have sucked this year, the stadium wasn’t packed, so it was easy to keep an eye on the kids.
The tickets we had were awesome; Section 66 is down the third base line, right in the heart of foul ball territory. Zachary had his glove so he was ready. The usher saw our seat numbers and asked in a low voice if we were with the hospice group. Blinking, I said we weren’t, and he walked us around to the other side of the section and found us three seats in the middle of an empty area. We settled in and watched the O’s pretty much dismantle the White Sox.
I counseled the kids on when to look out for foul balls and made sure they were keeping up with the game. There were three home runs, a killer double play, an amazing diving catch, and a pair of foul balls that landed in our section but too far away to catch. We enjoyed some hot dogs, cotton candy and popcorn, and I definitely enjoyed a couple of beers. The sun was warm and steady, and at the point when I started getting hot it dipped below the edge of the stadium, blanketing us with comfortable shade. By the middle of the 8th inning the nails were in the coffin, so we made for the exits ahead of time.
Returning to the Eastern Shore, we met up with K at Hemmingway’s, a restaurant right over the Bay Bridge, and found seats out on the deck overlooking the water. There we had some lemonade with dinner, caught up, and made plans for pumpkin picking in October.
Time was, back in the halcyon days of blogging, people used to comment on posts. I made online friends with a bunch of people through comment threads on other sites, and we’d trade responses for days sometimes. With comments came comment spam, and a lot of us that ran weblogs turned on various measures to counteract Russian dating scams and link farming. I’ve had registration enabled for the comments here for a few years, and I guess that makes the barrier to entry too high. I just disabled it, so anyone should be able to comment here without facing a login form. I know it’s not as immediate as the Twitters and Facebooks, but if you see something you like here, take a minute and drop me a comment or two so I know you’re still alive.